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Thoughts on lots of things, especially education, psychology, culture, religion, and personal growth.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Discouragement

Let's say you're a healthy woman in every way, as far as you can tell, but you can't seem to have a baby. You've had 10 miscarriages and 3 stillbirths (carried fully to term, but the baby was dead when born) in the past 17 years of trying. You've been doing everything right, according to doctors, but the fetuses keep dying.  Wouldn't you naturally feel discouraged about the idea of getting pregnant again? You'd consider other options. (Adoption is completely out of the question for this woman for lots of reasons.)

Ten miscarriages. We're not talking about 2-3 miscarriages. Ten. I'm not just picking that number randomly to make it a nice even number. I counted. 
Three stillbirths.  Do you know how traumatic even one is? How hard it is on the body?

Hope is a cruel joke in circumstances like these.  If you found out you were pregnant ONCE AGAIN, that old familiar spark of hope would be quickly drowned out with a dry, bitter despair. It didn't work any other time, why would this time be different? Clearly something is wrong, and nobody can fix it.  Hope makes things worse.  Better not to hope than to have hope make you keep trying and exposing yourself to trauma.  Trauma has serious consequences on one's health. So does lack of hope, but not as much effect as trauma does.

Your bullshit happy phrases and cliches trying to get her to hope again are making it worse. You don't know what you're talking about. You aren't her. You haven't walked this path. You are an idiot. Shut up.

This woman's only choices are:
  1. To stupidly keep trying... Time of death estimate: a few years, from the pain and/or complications of the efforts. Suffering level: high.
  2. To commit suicide... Time of death estimate: soon. Suffering level: moderate.
  3. To struggle through a path that does not involve having her basic need/deep desire for offspring met, but which she compensates around in various unsatisfactory ways. Time of death estimate: 2-3 more decades. Suffering level: moderate.
Best choice is #3. Any reasonable person in the circumstances would say so.

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